Except wars occurred all the time during the Cold War. The two predominant superpowers did their best to meddle and interfere, leading to invasions, clandestine operations and outright coups. Both the USSR and the US were involved in actual wars.
That's not really my main point. But basically my wording wasn't all that great. By "actual wars" I meant direct war ala WW1. That obviously didn't happen between US and Russia, only proxy wars happened.
Rome's interior was peaceful, yes, but the frontiers were anything but. Also, it isn't as if Rome expanded benevolently, but through harsh subjugation and in some cases complete eradication (Carthage). Not to mention that the only reason Rome was so successful in expanding as they did was that they were far ahead in terms of military thinking than their neighbours.
That doesn't change the fact that: 1) the border regions weren't peaceful before anyway 2) the interior that was now peaceful, wasn't before.
Comparing the US empire to the EU is comparing apples and oranges. One is a superpower, while the other is a essentially a customs union that can hardly agree on things sometimes.
No it's really not. The EU is a group of ethnically/culturally diverse states that surrender part of their national sovereignty to a higher authority. That's literally the definition of an empire. A decentralised empire, but an empire nonetheless.
Humanity in its current level of development simply cannot exist under a one world order, a united Earth so to speak. We value individualism far too much, otherwise the whole world would be one big communist lovefest.
I believe it's the opposite. Individualism is precisely the opposite of gregarian behavior, which is the basis of nationalism, religious fanaticism, hooliganism and so on. If everybody acted strictly for personal interest, you wouldn't have soldiers ready to sacrifice themselves for the motherland, because that's against personal interest. The only reason the average joe can be convinced to fight in wars and kill other people isn't rational, it's romantic in essence. You might argue that mercenaries fight wars for personal gain. Yes, but they do not actually want to kill or win. They just want easy money and surviving. Hence they can just reach an agreement. Case in point
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condottieri http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Zagonara http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Molinella.